This competition
requires a Team Coach, an adult who
works at a Louisiana high school as teacher,
administrator, or staff member and has a school email account.
Every high
school in Louisiana is entitled to enter a single
team composed of 5 to 15 students, under the
guidance
of a "Team Coach" who is designated by the Principal.
(If there are "co-coaches", please flip a coin to see who is the
single "key contact person" for registration and for all email
communication.)

You will lead a team that represents
your
school in an annual state-wide online competition.

You will have the opportunity to
win a team trophy and prizes.

Be a "shaker and mover" at your school and
influence,
by example, the way technology can be used to enhance
instruction.

Have a great time encouraging and rewarding
student
excellence.

As Team Coach, What
Do I Need To Do?Expect
to commit a total of about 10 hours of time. The time and
effort is roughly equivalent to organizing a field trip.

1. Contact the principal
of your school in order to become the designated Team Coach.
2. Be aware of the deadlines.
3. Select a team list of up to 15 participating high
school students.
4. Register your team with the
online registration form. Only you can do that. No cost is involved
due to sponsorship
support.
5. Reserve a room
with Internet-accessible computers for the entire morning of the Technology Challenge.
6. Arrange to have participating students excused from their
classes during
the competition, just like for a field trip. In this case, the field
trip is "virtual".
7. Set up a scheduled block of an uninterrupted time period from 8 AM
to 11:59 AM on the day of the
Technology Challenge.
8. On the day of the Technology Challenge, students should
work on their tasks
without direct assistance.
9. You should only
provide minimal, if any, technical support, You may assist
in accessing files for the Technology Challenge during the
first 10
minutes and submitting the files during
the last 10 minutes.
10. There
is a stiff penalty for a late submission of completed work after 11:59
AM, for every minute late, one point will be deducted. Submissions that are more than 30
minutes late will NOT be judged.
11.
While not required, we do recommend that your school pay for
a noon "pizza party" following the Technology
Challenge.
We do recommend that you consider rewarding the students in this way.
There is a sense of accomplishment in working together as a team. Most
teams, in fact, do this!
12.
As Team Coach, you should assist only when technical problems arise.
Otherwise, only participating students should
touch
the mouse or keyboard during the competition, not you, or anyone else!
13. Your school's computers should have Microsoft
Office
software or software that can read and write Word, Powerpoint, and
Excel files. When
your team creates files, the files should be in a "common format" so
that the many judges who are judging entries online, on their
own
computers, will have no trouble opening the files.
14. Your lab should have the capability to do minor
editing
of image files.
15.
As Team Coach, you are expected to spend a few minutes
to fill out an online evaluation form after
the Technology Challenge event.
16. Every Team
Coach receives confirmation of registration by
email. The
email message will include detailed instructions for accessing your
team online "Moodle"
account and the downloading
and uploading files for the competition.
17. Please note: In previous events, some high schools had
filtered email
very aggressively; while teams could send email to us, a few
teams couldn't
receive email from us! If you do not receive an email message,
as
described in this schedule, please contact us. To avoid this
possibility, tell your tech
support or network administrator to make sure that "email from the ulm.edu domain
should not be
blocked or filtered.What
Do I Need To Know?You are not
required to have any special technical knowledge other
than being able to communicate by email. You should check your
email for confirmation
of registration. Once your team is
registered, you will get a detailed email message with visual details
for accessing your team's
password-protected online "Moodle" account. Please
check your email regularly. As Team Coach, you should be the
only person from your team to contact
us.

Your
main responsibility is forming a team; collectively,
the team members should have enough technical
knowledge to complete challenging tasks
on their own. No one student has to know everything. In fact, it's a
very good idea that students divide tasks during the first 15
minutes of
the competition... on their own.

After your team is registered, you will receive complete directions by
email for accessing a password-protected online
site that will be used to exchange files
electronically for the
competition. You may provide the login and
password information to
one of the student team members so that he/she can access and
upload files for the Technology Challenge.

Please allow the students to work on their own. They may use any
references they like that they can access on their own, without adult
assistance. In fact, no
adults should help or assist students to
prepare answers or complete tasks. Adults may only
provide minimal technical support assistance. What Are The Rules?

While you,
as the
Team Coach may interact verbally with the team, you
should not
touch or use a keyboard or
mouse during the actual competition. You should NOT assist students as
they work on the Challenge.

This is a
team effort with a deadline. For
every minute late in electronic submission, for any reason, 1 point is
deducted from a
possible score of 100 points. Keep this in mind and encourage students
to budget their time accordingly. The final
deadline for all submissions is 11:59 AM on the day
of the Technology Challenge;
team submissions that are late by more than 30 minutes will NOT be
judged.

As
in the
real world, technical problems may occur, for any reason. It
can happen. It does happen. It may happen.

For
extraordinary circumstances regarding any issue or problem during the
competition, the volunteer organizers reserve the right to make a final
decision regarding any matter or issue. This is explained clearly on
the application form when you register the team.

Only the
Team Coach should communicate on behalf of the team,
using email, whenever possible, for communication.

Is
The Technology Challenge For Me?As you
consider being a Team Coach, please
ask yourself
these questions:

Do you
believe that we need to encourage opportunities for using
technology in our classrooms for instruction?

Is teamwork
the type of skill we should actively encourage in high school?

Would you
like to see students get interested in technology-enhanced instruction
and projects?

Do you wish
students had the same enthusiasm for learning as they have for
sports?

Should we
actively acknowledge the skills of outstanding students?

If
you answered yes to most (or all!) of the questions,
you should
consider participating in this year's Technology Challenge as
a
designated Team Coach, designated by the principal of your
high school.
We invite
you to encourage student learning with technology
by recruiting a Technology Challenge team in your high school.
The
mission of this challenge is to provide
enthusiastic support for more active involvement of students in using
technology in active learning opportunities. We want
to improve the
quality of high school education in Louisiana with this
mission:

To
create a passion for learning
through teamwork.

To
improve the quality of education through the active acknowledgment of
excellence in students and the distribution of
their work to
the general public.

To
celebrate
and
recognize outstanding student achievement with
school trophies and, hopefully in the future, scholarships.

To promote
partnerships for supporting
learning with technology.

To
promote
higher
levels of achievement through
recognized excellence.

To
attract
more
students, particularly females and minorities, to
professional and technical careers dealing with technology.